The economic adjustment programs imposed on Greece have failed to create the necessary transformations for a sustainable exit from the debt crisis. The economic and social cost of their implementation is significant, while at the same time they have accumulated even higher public debt in the economy. Their failure is attributed to the fact that their design was based on the flawed ideas of dominant economic policy, which is characterized by a lack of realism. Their design and implementation did not take into account the basic institutional and structural characteristics of the Greek economy. Greece was required to adapt to their assumptions. This could only be done through a combination of fraud and self-deception. The cultivation of positive expectations served as the mechanism for manipulating public opinion to accept the implementation of the Memoranda as the only way out of the crisis. The self-deception of the economic adjustment programs is the two sides of the detachment of economic policy from the economic and social reality of the country.